Last May, the CRTC asked Canadians to join their independent study to allow broadband measuring experts SamKnows, to compile and analyze broadband speeds across Canada.
Today, the Commission released their report, which concludeds the “majority” of Internet service providers offered higher speeds than advertised.
The following ISPs—except for SaskTel (they declined involvement)—participated: Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, Rogers, Cogeco, Eastlink, MTS, Northwestel, Shaw, TELUS and Vidéotron.
The study sought 6,200 volunteers, with over 3,000 participating in this study. The second phase will take place this fall, which will include more ISPs such as: Distributel, Nexicom, Primus, Teksavvy, VMedia, and Xplornet. More volunteers will also be part of this next phase.
Jean-Pierre Blais, CRTC Chairman and CEO, said in a statement:
“We are grateful to the thousands of Canadians who volunteered for the first-ever broadband measurement project of its kind in Canada. We would also like to thank the ISPs who contributed to the success of this innovative initiative. The results of the first phase of the project provide valuable insight on the real-world performance of Internet services across Canada. Stay tuned for details about the second phase of the project, which will be launched in the coming weeks.”
Data was collected from SamKnows Whiteboxes installed within consumer homes, from March 15 to April 14 of this year. Internet providers “largely met or exceeded their advertised upload speeds,” while TELUS’ 6x1Mbps DSL plan and Bell Aliant’s 7×0.64Mbps DSL service were the only ones to underperform, reaching less than 90% of their advertised rates, at 85% and 77% respectively.
Bell reacted to the report, with Wade Oosterman, Group President of BCE and Bell Canada, and Bell’s Chief Brand Officer, saying “Canadians can be justifiably proud that our country’s broadband fibre and wireless networks rank among the fastest and best in the world.”
Manon Brouillette, President and CEO of Videotron, commented “The results released today show once again that we are giving consumers and businesses the speeds they expect and delivering on our promise to the customers who place their trust in us day after day.”
Are you getting faster speeds than advertised from your ISP? We’re on Shaw’s WideOpen Internet 150, and we have seen download speeds up to 175Mbps over Wi-Fi, at off peak times.
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Now give us more data
thats complete and utter bullshit
as much as would love to agree, from my small sample – rogers ignite 100u gives me 120-160 Mbit downloads most of the time….
It’s been known for awhile that most ISP’s in Canada over-provision their networks. Obviously some people are in highly congested spots and get shafted, but the numbers presented are averages.
Third party providers “borrow” networks from the big boys so the second phase will be interesting to see. But I take these surveys as a grain of salt.
We had Rogers ignite 250 for about a year and regularly saw over 300. Peak, off-peak, days, nights, weekends, what have you. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw it less than 250. Even when I thought it was running slow, it would always measure up.
Perhaps, but they charge obscene amounts of money for what we get.
I’m on Bell’s 50 plan (FTTH) and regularly get download speeds of more than 90. Uploads are just over 50 so more of in line with what I’m supposed to be getting. Suspect this is because most of my neighbours are loyal Vidéotron customers. I switched to Bell reluctantly because I couldn’t get anything over 30 and experienced a lot of outages. Vidéotron’s technology may have been out-of-date, but their customer service was very good. Not so much with Bell.
In my area, as an example:
Bell Aliant FibreOP, advertised as 80/30 Mbps, regularly 90-95/30-35 Mbps.
EastLink, advertised as 940/10 Mbps, regularly 300-400/8-10 Mbps.
10 up on a 940 connection? That’s…. real bad.